Peru's right-wing president-elect Keiko Fujimori will take office on Tuesday, vowing to tackle the wave of crime sweeping the Andean nation. Fujimori won the June 7 presidential runoff by fewer than 50,000 votes, after losing the past three runoffs. The 51-year-old came head-to-head with leftist Roberto Sanchez, with her campaign shadowed by the divisive legacy of her father Alberto Fujimori, who ruled Peru in the 1990s.
Alberto Fujimori was jailed for corruption and crimes against humanity committed during what he considered a fight against terrorism. 'It is a party with deep popular roots that has had a dynamic presence in Peruvian politics, even when it was losing elections, because of its uninterrupted presence in Congress,' Jeffrey Radzinsky, director of the political consultancy GFP, said of Fujimori's Fuerza Popular party.
Fujimori campaigned on a hardline security platform as Peru faces its worst security crisis in decades, fueled by the spread of both local and foreign criminal gangs that oversee contract killings and extortion. She has proposed fighting crime by expelling undocumented people, setting up courts with anonymous judges and making prisoners work for their food.
The president-elect has also vowed to tackle the El Niño climate phenomenon, which meteorologists predict will be the most intense and devastating since 1998. Fuerza Popular is the largest caucus in Congress, but right-wing groups still fall short of the majority required to push through Fujimori's initiatives.
The inauguration ceremony will be attended by leaders including Argentina's Javier Milei, Chile's Jose Antonio Kast, Bolivia's Rodrigo Paz, Ecuador's Daniel Noboa and Uruguay's Yamandu Orsi. Fujimori will be the country's ninth president in a decade, succeeding interim leader Jose Maria Balcazar. She will govern until 2031.
